What makes you think that saying “I am” has anything to do with Deity in the first place? And what is Diety. Does it mean Supreme Being or simply a nonhuman of importance or something such? What evidence do you offer for such a conclusion?
And why does everyone ignore the question and context for why such a statement was uttered? It had nothing to do with a Hebrew text written thousands of years earlier in the book of the Law. So why are such scripture matches made and do they prove anything? If so how?
JosephMalik: Are you sure Jesus didn`t mean to "hint" to the name of God when uttering those words? I recently saw a program (can`t remember it`s name), but the topic was "who was responsible for Jesus` death?". Was it the Roman authoroties, was it the jewish priests, or was it Jesus himself, provoking the jewish priests? One argument for the last possibility, was the fact that Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey! Jesus knew very well the scriptures of the Old Testament, in :
Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
...and in choosing to enter Jerusalem on a donkey:
Matthew 21:4-5 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
...He wanted to send a message to the people, and the Jewish priests (I am the Messiah). So when Jesus use words such as "I am"...in aramaic, and Jesus obviosuly knows what the OT-scriptures says! (he is also claimed to have been teaching jewish scholars outside the Temple, as a young boy) isn`t it (more than) likely that Jesus knows what Gods name, YHWH, means (I am/I exist, in hebrew), and isn`t it possible that his intentions then are to claim that he is God, in aramaic, his and his followers language? Although Jesus understood hebrew, it`s not clear whether his followers (fully) understood it? (I am not clear on how close/distant aramaic is from hebrew). Why would he otherwise utter these words? What followed after "I am"? If nothing "in particular" followed ("I am the Messiah", for example), and Jesus knew hebrew, and the meaning of Gods word in hebrew (aramaic is viewed as a hebrew dialect, or at least not to distant from hebrew, isn`t it?) was clear to Jesus, I can`t understand what else "I am" could mean.
(I have to underline that I`m not trying to start a quarrel or heated debate with you, I am aware of your work, and I am only an amateur. I`m still trying to figure out what the Bible really says, now 13 years after I left the JWs)
